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There are still plenty of questions surrounding the demise of Affliction Entertainment and their sudden reconciliation with the UFC. One man who can answer most of them is Tom Atencio. The vice president of Affliction Entertainment was the face of the organization during its short existence.

Less than a month ago, lightweight George Sotiropoulos was huffing and puffing alongside George Roop at Xtreme Couture, training for a fight against Rob Emerson at UFC 101.
But Emerson sustained a bad cut last Monday and was forced to withdraw from the Aug. 8 fight in Philadelphia, leaving Sotiropoulos without an opponent. Roop was uninjured and un-booked after a decision victory over Dave Kaplan at UFC 98. Gym-mates or not, it was business – Roop was the next target.

Weight – whether of the physical sort or the kind that puts pressure on a champion’s shoulders – is not slowing Anderson Silva down.
During a media teleconference promoting his upcoming bout with Forrest Griffin at UFC 101, his second trip to light heavyweight, Silva said he could deal with both.
On the physical side, it’s easy to see when he trains with regular partners Rafael “Feijao” Calvancante and the Nogueira brothers.

Here is Joe daddy's response to Aoki's recent comments saying how he wanted Nate Diaz to win against Joe Daddy so the UFC would cut him and he would go to dream..
Why is aoki down playing me!
Aoki is a spectacular fighter can he beat me no. Game over it is all style

The UFC have taken over the contracts of around twenty Affliction fighters following their collapse last Friday, with rumours beginning to circulate that there could be a few big names involved.
According to InsideFights.com a Zuffa official revealed the news to them earlier this week, with the two promotions coming to the agreement that Affliction would stop promoting MMA events.

"I can give you a guarantee it's not accurate," said Apy Echteld of M-1 Global, a St. Petersburg, Russia-based promotion and management company of which Emelianenko is an equity stakeholder.
...
Echteld declined to comment on negotiations between M-1 Global and the UFC, which are rumored to be taking place Tuesday in Los Angeles. He pointed to a press conference Wednesday in Anaheim, Calif., for "important" news on Emelianenko's fate.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) may have finally found a permanent home for its live programming in the United Kingdom (UK) after an abrupt end to its partnership with Setanta Sports earlier this year.
According to The Sun, a new deal with ESPN is expected to be announced during a UFC press conference on Friday, July 31. “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” will reportedly launch their UK channel shortly after that on August 3 with plans to air UFC 101 as its first major event on August 8.

Another abandoned Affliction bout has found a home.
Ben Rothwell and Chase Gormley will make their Octagon debuts in a heavyweight bout at UFC 104 on Oct. 24 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations.

A long-awaited agreement between the Ultimate Fighting Championship and the man considered the world's best mixed martial arts fighter, Fedor Emelianenko, is expected to be announced by UFC President Dana White on Friday, a source with information about the negotiations told The Times today.
The source, who asked not to be identified because he's not authorized to speak publicly about the dealings, called negotiations between the UFC and Fedor "very civil" just days after Fedor's scheduled Affliction Trilogy fight Saturday against Josh Barnett was canceled.

In regards to strict terms of UFC contract, we asked Aleksander Emelianenko to comment:
"You can deal with UFC, I know that they have flexible contract system. All these talks about "strict" contract terms with signing with UFC, come ONLY from Vadim Finkelstein, who wants to push his owns business projects through Fedor's fights"

Although WEC actually doesn't plan to put on PPV events until sometime in 2010, they will sort of test the waters at WEC 42. The promotion will make a live online feed of the show available via the official websites-wec.tv and ufc.com-for $9.99 with Versus commentary. The catch? It's only available outside of North America due to Versus broadcast rights. Thank the Japanese fans for this, as strong interest among them in seeing Takeya Mizugaki in action factored into this.

Following the cancellation of "Affliction: Trilogy" and the collapse of the entire Affliction promotion, the man widely considered to be the world's top-heavyweight, Fedor Emelianenko, is currently without an upcoming fight.
And as the world waits to see where the fighters from the now-defunct Affliction promotion end up, speculation continues to mount regarding where Emelianenko will fight next.

CNBC'S "ULTIMATE FIGHTING: FISTFUL OF DOLLARS" will premiere on Wednesday, July 29th at 10PM and 1AM ET.
The documentary will re-air on Friday, July 31st at 1AM and Sunday, August 2nd at 10PM ET.
It's a hit business like no other. And CNBC is ready for a rematch.
Ultimate Fighting Championship – the premiere name in the sport of mixed martial arts.

Yesterday, our own Mike Fagan posted an article reporting that the Nevada State Athletic Commission will decide on some new rules for MMA on August 17th. One of the rule changes set to be voted on by the NSAC is to increase rounds within "special events" to five rounds at the discretion of the NSAC. This will most likely be in response to a request from the promotion. The criteria for which a bout falls under the "special" criteria has yet to be mentioned by the NSAC.

Josh Barnett's MMA career may be on brief hold, but his pro wrestling one isn't. "The Baby-Faced Assassin," very much in the news these days after it was announced last week that he tested positive for an anabolic steroid, which led to Affliction Entertainment canceling its upcoming event, will wrestle on Aug. 9 for Inoki Genome Federation in Japan. Barnett's manager, Shannon Hooper, confirmed the news with FanHouse on Tuesday

It's not a done deal yet, but it looks like Jay Hieron might be the winner of the "Who Gets To Face Nick Diaz on 8/15" sweepstakes. Hieron beat out Phil Baroni to replace Joe Riggs according to a GracieFighter.com report. No immediate confirmation from Strikeforce, so as always, stay tuned.

The demise of Affliction Entertainment will not simply go away after one press release. The fact of the matter is that they had a lot of partners involved. One of those partners was Mark Cuban's HDNet television network, which was scheduled to air the undercard of the now-canceled "Affliction: Trilogy."

Affliction became the newest member on Friday of a group of which it wanted no part.
It joined BodogFIGHT, the World Fighting Alliance, the International Fight League, EliteXC and others on the list of mixed martial arts promotions that were backed by big money, big hype and big dreams before ending up as financial nightmares and failing.
From Affliction's start, the odds were greatly against success because of several major flaws in its business model.
The first was the outdated belief that heavyweight is fighting's marquee division. This notion led Affliction to overspend in an effort to corner the market on those it judged to be the top heavyweights, all in the name of making the promotion a major player.